


Contrition

by metronome



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blood and Gore, Character Analysis, Eye Trauma, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Male My Unit | Byleth, Marriage Proposal, Multi, Past Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychosis, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Scars, dimileth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2020-11-26 14:08:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20931482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metronome/pseuds/metronome
Summary: Dimitri struggles to come to terms with everything as it has unfolded in his life - though he may linger on past regrets, the warm touch of his recently-wed husband guides from back to the path he may stray from."I will be there, standing beside you."[A multi-part series of interconnecting drabbles encompassing the development of Dimitri and Byleth's relationship during the course of the Blue Lions route. This is ongoing and will be updated.]





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a short series of 'analysis' stories to break down the development that happens primary between Byleth and Dimitri, but also the interpersonal relationships of all of the Blue Lions students as time goes on.
> 
> I had to put off completing this because my home keyboard is currently broken! Look forward to chapter updates as I chip away.
> 
> Most sections are stand-alone scenes.
> 
> I am editing/adding things at the moment, so if you see things being moved around, that is why!

It’s there he begins again.

Amongst a sea of bodies, drenched in blood, drenched so deeply that his own marrow would be stained a viscous sanguine. 

Voices speak to him on whispers of the wind, on the tip of his ears, behind his eyes, so softly that it would be impossible for anyone else but him to hear. They speak maddeningly loud, in anguished cries, pleading endlessly.

They beg for respite, they beg for deliverance; give us your flesh, the breadth of your reach with spear in hand so you may pierce the foes who have hurt, who have killed, who have destroyed.

_ Just like you. _

These hands, these hands which have wrung necks, broken bones, split, torn, pulled apart and felled many: a source of salvation that the deceased can alleviate their burdens unto. These hands that continue to kill for revenge, for  _ purpose _ , he promised.

Fire rips at the corpses beneath him like an incense burning upon a grave, the air hangs heavy with the stench of burning flesh.

He trudges through the viscera beneath him, legs like lead pulling him further down, but eyes fixed on a point unseen. Hands from his past grip at his trembling limbs as he searches for a sign of life, but there is no one.

No one except  _ her, _ standing above the flames dressed in a crimson as vibrant as the fire itself.

_ El?  _

Breathlessly met with the laconism in her movement - this figure among scarlet skies swings the weapon in her hand with childish glee as she pivots on the front of her feet, dancing alone in the slaughter around her.

A cautious, curious approach leads the Faerghus prince closer to the woman he once called family, in the same way he once turned away from his professor to satiate his guilt, to reaffirm that she truly did die on the end of his spear.

That concern drives him to know more, constantly. Even if it hurts. Always if it hurts.

With a gentle movement, the empreror presses her axe into the ground beneath her: an adjunct form of pacivity the crown prince has never been truly familiar with. A nonviolent image of her feels more like a spectre of the past than a surprise.

This is a spectacle wholly lost to the sands of time.

Forgotten memories, long past. Perhaps before she knew pain deeper within than the knives that once tore into her flesh.

From behind, she extends her hands, a  _ Pas de Basque _ awaiting a partner, hands languidly extending in the air, fingers relaxed, awaiting a surface to rest on.

Hesitantly, he lifts his own hand below her own. Leading her like she once lead him. 

In a slow waltz, they step together amongst the horror that has taken the Kingdom’s capital.

“Do you regret killing me?” she asks, shifting her heels in the process of a box step.

Reluctance stills his body, the answer drawing unpleasant anamnesis from the recluses of his mind, from when his form and hands felt nothing like his own, existing entirely separate from each other.

Compartmentalizing these fractured pieces of his experience, hiding away the parts of him that once made him feel whole. Focusing on the urges that dwells within, and the rush of adrenaline that filled him whenever he killed.

Surely, this part of him must be who he truly is.

Following in her steps, he leads the turn of their dance, deliberating an answer to her question. 

“... Of course I do. How could you ask me something so foolish? You should know better than anyone.”

A swivel, and turn.

“Did it not bring you pleasure? Did it not bring you peace? To put an end to my  _ unjust  _ crusade, and shape the world into what your father would have wanted.”

Steps.

“I did not recognize the person you had become, El. I cannot accept your idea of a peaceful world built upon the death and suffering of the innocent.”

Caesura in the verse of their song, hanging notes with a pregnant pause between, lulling the gruesome scream of fire around them and easing into a somber melody.

“Dimitri, your heart bleeds far too much for others. Had our dear professor not been there to guide you… had he been by my side instead, revenge would be a tourniquet for you let loose. You would have died, scared, and alone. Like I did. A victim of your own rage.”

_ You’re right. _

“You took countless lives in the name of a false justice. You slaughtered so many in your madness. Yet my teacher chose you; he followed _ you _ into the dark and pulled _ you _ back into the light. Much like my family, I too will be forgotten in time.”

Words like a blade to his throat stripped him of his breath, of his practiced eupraxia in exchange for a quivering body. A shaken soul.

“Will you, in time, forget me as well?”

A dip into the curve of his elbow, with a bend of his knees, bringing their waltz to an end.

It was then, upon gazing at her figure, he realized her abdomen had been caved in. Blood rushed from her stomach and dripped ceaselessly down her carmine dress, and her pallid face left with the same enervated expression she last looked upon him with, head limp atop his arm.

Dimitri snaps awake, gasping for air, heart racing; sweat coats his face, which cools quickly in the evening weather.

Snow falls gently, sheeting his room’s window panes in small clumps of ice, clinging to the glass against the toss of flurry.

Yet, in contrast to the peaceful silence that winter brought to his lands, vivid images of blood flashed through his mind faster than he can process them.

He buries his head in his hands and golden hair, straining against the anxiety that wells up within, shaking as he tries to bring himself together again. Tears stung as they welled up in his eyes, pushing past the scar left behind on the right side of his face.

_ I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, El. I didn’t want things to end like this. _

The face of his step-sister, whose own blood he had spilled on his undying quest for revenge had plagued his mind like mold on rotwood; he could not free himself of the image of her corpse, kneeling before him, clouded eyes turned downward as blood pooled around her knees.

For it was he who wielded Areadbhar, he who drove its bone through her stomach. Who felt the immense pressure of steel, mere inches from his beating heart, slide through his shoulder in retaliation to his outstretched hand.

She had been told to carve a path, yet, her path had been one of maddening single-mindedness. One she was willing to kill her childhood friend, and self, to achieve.

So to protect the world that he would help shape, to restore empathy and understanding to the masses, to protect the people he loved, he ended her crusade.

_ I killed you. I had no choice.  _

In the back of his psyche, like vultures to a carcass, the sighing of regret from those he had failed to protect picks at the parts of him he had barely put back together in the days post-war. 

Yet something pulls him away from this self-flagellation. Something small, and delicate, but bright enough to wash away the darkness.

A soft sigh slips from the man beside him, whose arm had been around the prince’s waist, who had exhaustedly kept him company since they came together again over two years ago. 

The man who he shut out, for months, with agonized screams in a chapel. Whose warm hands brought him back from the depths of this floe he had ended up on amongst a frigid sea of death.

Those wonderful hands that pulled him desperately from the blackness of his own soul.

Byleth had never truly given up on Dimitri. Not in all the years they spent together.

Not after a gap in time.

Though in Byleth’s eyes, five years had disappeared from his life in a matter of moments. He woke up, drenched in the cold water of a river, fabric clinging to his shivering body. Sothis had once more saved him from himself, and though he was blessed to skirt the grasp of death again, the price he paid was equally as damaging.

In five years, so much had changed, and quickly: Dimitri lost an eye to infection, his throne, and the valiance of the soon to be king he once was, all to take on the role of a murderous beast wearing the skin of a whitish ghost, slumped away in the recesses of ruined buildings.

Yet Byleth stayed the same. His young face, barely touched by time and the trials of life.

Far less expressionless than Dimitri remembered - softer, loving,  _ human _ . Those now emerald green eyes of his seemed to constantly be lit up like stars against the blanket of night when he peered at Dimitri. Though he may contest on whether or not that look was deserved, the professor never hesitated to smile at him with the same fondness he showed six years prior. 

Ah, he  _ did _ remember worry plaguing his brow every time they spoke. Any time he raised his voice. Any time he shook away his mentor’s touch.

Regardless of the stubbornness which pushed his mentor to prod at Dimitri’s isolation, regardless of how ignorant he was to pain Dimitri had experienced in five years passed. 

But, somehow, regardless of all that had happened, this man had managed to keep him afloat. When they were together, Dimitri’s anxieties washed away; when Byleth clung to Dimitri, it stabilized him in ways that normally would take a herculean amount of effort. 

This man, with his pale green hair and smaller frame, gently breathes into Dimitri’s side, and in response, he can’t help but run his own shaking hands along his teacher’s jaw.

Idly brushing against his lips.  _ Those _ lips which form a mesmerizing smile, enough to make his knees quake even now.

He needed anything to remind him that he was still “here”, and so his teacher acted as a tangible piece of evidence which bound Dimitri to this waking world with an embrace. Byleth was someone who happened to know him better than he knew himself at the moment, and he clung gravely to the idea as if it would disappear into the night if he let go.

Noticing Byleth’s slight shivering in Fhirdiad’s stilling weather, he pulls the heavy quilt which conformed to both of their bodies up to cover the man’s shoulders, embracing him gently. 

From the fireplace which burned brightly against this lightless room rose a benign warmth that brought feeling back to their numb hands. 

Ever since the day Byleth was lost in unending darkness, his hair had taken on a creamy, light green that sparkled in light and eyes that bore a slight glow. He had, for all intents and purposes, taken on the power of a god - one that extended her hand out in his hour of need. 

Bitterness left an unpleasant taste in Dimitri’s mouth.

Though he had been endlessly thankful to the formless figure which reached out to Byleth and saved him from the clutches of eternal solitude and eventual death, he found himself cursing that self same deity for not answering his pleading cries for death as he walked through a valley of corpses.

But he could never curse the Goddess, for she had graciously delivered his beloved professor back to him in his eleventh hour.

Since they had married, Byleth had gotten into the habit of nestling into the curve along the left side of Dimitri’s abdomen at night, resting his face on his chest, listening to the rhythm of Dimitri’s steady heartbeat. Though it was still somewhat tough for Dimitri to properly move his left arm, due to the wound he had received from Edelgard’s gifted dagger, he would still try to cradle his now husband beneath him. 

He had gone out of the way to always approach within the range of Dimitri’s sight, and small steps towards normalizing his injuries made him feel like less of a monster. Being able to see him in his peripheral acted as a comfort, when half of his vision was stolen from him.

So they would doze off in each others’ warm embrace.

And every day since their marriage, and every day after, Byleth would whisper “I love you,” before drifting off into a deep sleep.

With a small twist, Dimitri presses his lips to Byleth’s forehead, relaxing beneath the smaller man’s arms, letting his heavy eyes fall closed as he rests his chin above mint green hair.

“What did I do to deserve your care?”

* * *

  
  
Before Byleth returned, the King of Faerghus had known death as a close shadow.

In those years, their begging calls were not the only sense of torment he felt. It was the constant irritability. The inability to be rational about decisions. The sense of slipping away into the sea of voices which sang wanton songs of death, and murder, and slaughter - 

So he killed.

And killed.

And when Glenn stared at him, a cadaverous, ashen figure in the corner of his vision, deeming his actions to be unworthy of revenge, he felt sick to his stomach. 

_ Please my son _ , Lambert begged from the corners of his eyes,  _ I want you to be free from this cycle. You’re still fumbling aimlessly. Raise your blade against those who took us from you. _

So sleepless nights became sleepless weeks; the dread filled his soul to the brim, and in the effort to plunge into the work of _pest_ _control_, he had submerged himself into a soundless tarry void in which no one could reach him.

And eventually, someone did.

On a tepid spring day, a man five-years displaced extended his hand out, concern riddling his green eyes.

Befitting of the strewn bodies which lie in rigor mortis around him, dust like cremain drifted through the monastery halls.

That shambling, slovenly cadaver who braced himself against the cold stone walls they once knew as home spoke in a hoarse voice:   
  
“I knew… that someday, you would be haunting me as well.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


In the days after their reunion, through the joyous smiles which their beloved professor’s presence brought, Dimitri shut him out.

Byleth pleaded time and time again: worried, scared and desperately trying to help.

It was a slow realization that took tragedy to solidify. Dimitri could not find himself, not amongst the crepuscule of his own blackened figure against a sea of blood. Those who had once loved him as a friend, as a brother, as a son, became tired and weary of his impulsive anger.

They flinched at the sound of his screaming voice.

They drowned in his ire.

They looked upon this so called ‘heir’ with contempt.

And somehow, the broadened gazes of their eyes were not enough to shake him.

The steel plate he wore smelled of blood.

Reeked of it.


	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth doesn't usually pray, but he finds himself returning to the chapel regardless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two months after the Azure Moon reunion.

It was a short few months after formally returning to Garreg Mach, Byleth had visited the chapel routinely in the forenoon. He made it a habit to reach out to his once students, to remind them that even through trying times, they were never truly alone. He would be there, as their ally. Always.

  
  
Byleth did not normally pray, however, since the tides of time had violently rushed him forward, he found himself taking silent solace to reflect. Perhaps not for those he had lost, but for those who he could yet save from this atrocious war. And though he tirelessly brought their faces to mind, only one person filled his heart with aching trepidation.

He found himself visiting only to gaze solemnly at the blonde man before him, who spoke out loud to no one in particular; who uttered feverish words of how desperately he wanted to free _ them _ from the turmoil of their suffering.

_ But Dimitri _ , _ don’t you see that you are the one suffering? _

Yet the prince stood alone, before the rubble which was once a beautiful altar, eye glazed over.

Vines sprouted from the cracks between stone and glass, life pushed forward regardless of the horrors that had occurred across the continent. From the zenith above filtered an argent light, which breaks into long shadows cast behind the walls and rocks before them.

Against this gracious scene stood a man, whose cape hung heavily over his back. The weight of his duty keeping his eyes turned downward, spinning the sublime summer light which shone through shattered glass into deep shadows, cold, and blue.   


With a cursory look across the room, Byleth could see the discomfort on the faces of the priests and nuns who had raised their glances from between their hands in silent service to look upon the visage of a broken man begging for forgiveness. Repentance laid its burdensome weight upon the shoulders of everyone who knelt in the form of their own reserved reticence.

The holy room they occupied felt much more like a stage in which they watched a man recite his own obituary. 

In their softest voices, they ask _ “Wasn’t that the bright young man from five years ago? The prodigy who lead his house to victory, from Faerghus? The young prince?” _

_ “I don’t recognize him anymore.” _   
_   
_“Does he not seem… unwell?”

This routine of visiting the chapel repeated for weeks, and he would always find Dimitri there. Gazing into the partially shattered, but once beautiful stained glass window. Breath shaking, hesitant and full of grudgingly uncultivated anger.

One day, Byleth could no longer gaze upon his former student whose heart had been swollen with sorrow. No longer could he turn a blind eye to his seething soul. Something had to be done.

He strolled quietly through the pews, footsteps echoing off the stone floor as he puts care into his approach - staying on the side where the prince’s peripheral vision isn’t obscured.

And with a soft voice, he addresses Dimitri by name.

For the first time in a long time, he turns to face his teacher.

Without realizing, Byleth’s brow was tight with concern. 

Dimitri had grown gaunt, and forlorn - with a dark shadow beneath his ice blue eye. He could tell from a glimpse that he hadn’t been taking care of himself outside of physical labour, with the quivering of his dry lips when he finally speaks:  
  
“Get away from me.”

Too stunned to speak, Byleth takes the opportunity to step closer, trying to close the space between the taller man and himself.

“I want to help.” 

And the sullen prince’s hands curl into tight fists, leather pulling taut beneath the pressure. 

In a brief moment, Dimitri’s gaze widened at the thought of _ touch _ again, but in immediate defense, refused to let him in.

_ You can’t _ , he thinks to himself, _ you can’t face him like this, no - you can’t touch him with your filthy hands. _

“You? Worried for _ me? _ You were gone for _ five years_. What do you know about what I’ve seen. What I’ve become?”

In a quick motion, Dimitri shoves Byleth against the small stone arch’s pillar near them- because of his natural strength, this pushes the shorter man much further than he anticipated on going and knocks the breath out of him.

_No,_ _this is wrong. This is all wrong._

_ (Don’t hurt him.) _

“How can you help, when your absence is why… is why…!”

Onlookers gasped gently, rising from their kneels to pacify this once radiant man.

Dimitri’s voice shook, untamed emotion boiling in his throat.

_ How could I raise my hands against you? You, of all people! _

_ (He looks scared.) _

And in the moment where Dimitri’s hand rested on the left side of Byleth’s chest, where most of the momentum of his push had gone, he is overcome with a sense of confusion no longer unique to him.

_ “Professor!” _

_ “Please, someone, stop them. Anyone…” _

_ “This man… this man is the future of the Kingdom?” _   


All of the swirling thoughts and self-hate that pool in the back of Dimitri’s mind come to a sharp halt. 

For the first time in his almost twenty-four years of life, he realizes:

“Your heart ... it doesn’t beat, does it?”

In hushed sound, so harsh in its embrace, Byleth averts Dimitri’s scrutinous eye.

This subject made his skin crawl, and he cannot place why. 

To him, he could only describe the feeling of having no heartbeat as natural - to others, it is far from it.

“It never has.”

Dimitri’s hand pressed against the left side of Byleth’s chest, harder, and in that brief few moments in which the shorter man stayed - back against stone - he stammered:

“I- It hurts.”

The King of Faerghus was aphonic in his antipathy, silenced without consideration, at a loss for words for himself. 

_ How could I? _


	3. III.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth worships Dimitri by kneeling beneath his legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second half of the chapter isn't safe for work.

The crown prince had never been intimate with anyone before.

The few moments he shared with others were brief, and he often found himself recoiling from touch - out of disgust, not towards anyone else but himself. 

When Mercedes extended a hand towards him, he pulled himself away, cradling his arms above his chest and impetrating her not to touch him again.

Sylvain tried to wrap an arm around his shoulder, and the prince narrowly stepped out of his reach.

Even Felix, in his odd way of showing affection, stood by Dimitri’s side and grimaced at the sight of him.

_ “You’ve really outdone yourself, Boar.” _

* * *

His beloved professor had all but physically forced him to move from this spot in which he had become complacent in.

Autumn came flush with cooler winds and browning leaves.

Dusk breathed a deep blue sky against an orange horizon, pitching the monastery into the early tides of march. 

As the sun slowly set atop the mountains visible from the chapel balcony, over the thinning lot of guards, church hands and merchants ending their days, the sigh of another day passed stirred feelings of regret in the hearts of the young prince and his professor.

Ice blue eyes lay affixed amongst the brightest part of the light which had been pushed past the horizon by the grasp of nightfall, searching for something that is no longer there. 

“I’m concerned about you, Dimitri. You seem to always be searching for something that is no longer there.”

“Are you? This is the part of myself that I suffocated for years since that day,” he spoke haltingly, “This is the rotting corpse left behind from the young man who burned with the rest of his family and friends, nine years ago. All I wanted that day, more than anything else, was to die.”

An irked sigh slips from Byleth’s lips.

“But now you are very much alive, aren’t you?”

The sound of hitching breaths unsettles the professor’s normally calm demeanor. 

“I suppose I’m alive by any standards. I _ am _ still standing, and my heart still beats, and so it will beat on until I am able to provide them the retribution they long for.”

_ So, it is true that a heart beating is an indication of life. I wonder… do you consider me to be living, Dimitri? _

“ … Until you kill her. Is that it?”

“Don’t make that face at me, professor. You - you’re wearing the same expression as _ them _. You’re balking at me. Rodrigue trusted me to take steps forward, yet I endlessly falter.”

Impulsively, Byleth lifts his hand again, and from behind, lightly places it upon Dimitri’s forearm.

Then, ever so gently, slides his hand into the prince’s own shaking one.

Byleth had never known this feeling of affection as deeply as he understood it in this moment: he wanted to take Dimitri’s hand. To guide him away from the depth of his own darkness. To bring him back into the light with him, so they could stand together once more.

In a pensive voice, Byleth speaks: “You haven’t slept. Your body is shivering, barely able to continue standing after all of the strain you put on yourself. You shoulder all of these burdens alone, and eventually that weight will break you.”

_ Break? _

This shakes the crown prince out of his spiral downward, for a brief moment. 

Byleth presses his forehead onto Dimitri’s cloak-ladden back, eyes slowly fluttering shut out of the immense comfort he felt wash over him.

“No matter what you have done in the past - no matter what we will have to do - I will be there, standing beside you.”

Breathe.

“You will never be alone again. I will _ never _ leave you alone again.”

_ Breathe. _

Cracks, like a nail to glass, along the surface of Dimitri’s mien spiral and sprout like a tree’s branches on a winter day.

“Love was once unfamiliar to me, however, I believe I understand it now. I understood it when my father was taken from me. It stung to cry, but I couldn’t stop. The pain was unbearable.”

The taller man turns on the balls of his feet to face his mentor.

_ Time has not touched you at all. Your face is just as beautiful as the day we met. _

Across the angles of their bodies, their hands remain together.

With the sun’s aureate glow filtering through Dimitri’s hair and over his shoulders, it reminded the young professor of how auspicious the prince had been upon their first meeting, and the caliginosity that brimmed beneath his surface.

The dust that blows in from the trees littered about the monastery into the chapel dance in the air, embers amongst a twilight sky. The beams of light that eclipsed Dimitri’s form from behind gave Byleth’s already shimmering eyes a fiery glow.

For this flash of regretful feelings rose in waves and crest at his head, washing effusive words up to his lips. And perhaps, up to his eyes as well.

“I feel that same pain, seeing you suffer.”

A familiar saddened smile swept across Dimitri’s angular features. 

Unknowingly, it left a bewildered expression on the younger man’s face - through the dew that crept at the brim of his eyes.

_ I can’t take this anymore. _

Dimitri stepped forward.

_ I can’t look at you like this. _

Forward.

_ I just want to ruin that exquisite expression of yours. _

Before Byleth could become fully aware of it, his back had once again met a wall. This time, however, it wasn’t with violent force. Dimitri’s hand braced his hips beneath the drape of his cloak, taking the impact.

With all of the emotion that welled inside of him over the past few months - no, the last _ five years _, milling in his stomach, he leaned in to press his lips against the shorter man’s own.

Byleth had been caught off guard - it was the first time he had ever kissed someone in his life. To him, the sensation was foreign, and the roughness of Dimitri’s lips against Byleth’s own felt like an apt comparison of their personalities. He was inexperienced, rushing, full of fervor that the young teacher hadn’t experienced previously.

Memories fluttered through his mind quickly, like pages in an overturned book, with no time to truly process the text that littered his mind in ink.

Life as a mercenary bore no rewards for him. From the candle-lit tavern which had been full with celebratory drinks and dinner after a long series of battles, to his father standing beside him, ring in hand. The paper and days were blurred with the dragged stains of blood. The blood of his enemies. His father’s own blood, which pooled warmly in his cradling hands. These men who lived and died on the battlefield dreamt of the touch of another, to some of them, a woman’s body. To others, family, friends, _ anyone _ . Love. _ Touch _.

“Touch” was foreign, and new. A concept riddled with complex feelings of adoration that Byleth had recently come to know, for the young man who walked into his life looking for guidance. 

So he offered him a form of touch that he had only experienced through observation.

A calm and storm. Gentle and rough. Both yearning. Desperately, their lips met.

_ Finally. Finally. Professor, I’ve finally... _

They stay within each other’s grasp, hands intertwined - one pushed up above Byleth’s head - as they shared this mutual first experience with intimacy. 

Dimitri let go of Byleth’s lips, eyes half-lidded, riddled with confusion and anxiety.

So his teacher closed the gap again, inquisitive about the strange expression that weighed heavily his once-student’s brow. Eager to taste him.

So they kissed anon.

Over, and over, and over.

Byleth cupped Dimitri’s face with his gloved hands, gently grazing the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the darkened curve beneath his eye, taking care to avoid his right one, bringing it closer to him.

_ If I had a heartbeat, I wonder how fast it would be right now. _

So he searched for one beneath the prince’s black armour which pressed against his own chest, aimlessly looking for a sign.

Below the blackened steel, there’s a strong and quick beat.

_ Are you nervous, too? _

Dimitri grazed his teeth along Byleth’s lips, breathing warm air onto them, running his own along the curve of his jaw down to his neck. Marking him.

And bites, vellicating the skin with the edges of his teeth as he lets go, leaving a resplendent red mark. 

The shorter man gasps in pain, face flushed. An uncharacteristically libertine sigh slips from his mouth, and that makes the soon to be King throb with excitement - or perhaps adrenaline.

Prodding again, Dimitri slipped his knee between Byleth’s own legs, hoisting him up with the wall as support. Feeling the friction from his touch makes Byleth grouse with discomfort in a surprisingly randy voice that felt foreign to even his own ears. From beneath the fabric of the professor’s garments, Byleth’s clear arousal was more than enough of an indicator that this wasn’t necessarily _ unwelcome _. In fact, the professor seemed rather sensitive to his touch.

Through gritted teeth, “_ Ah, Dimitri, I - _”

Something awoke in the young prince in that day. 

Something he had felt before. 

Something he had never acted on, but dreamt of in sleepless nights. 

* * *

They were eager to get to a private space. One away from prying eyes, to let the beast that lashed away at its human skin free. To know each other in ways they hadn’t previously, but they hadn’t been able to get far. They couldn’t - between begging stares and enclosed hands.

Stumbling into an unoccupied corridor in the chapel, obscured by the shadows cast from candlelight’s flame, the couple did away with reservations and anxieties. The younger man didn’t protest to his student’s rough touch; he let himself fall into the flow of Dimitri’s hunger, adrenaline running through his veins at an almost intoxicating speed. 

There was nothing more captivating to Dimitri than his professor’s flushed face and parted lips as he touched him, each brush of his fingers unearthing a side of him that he had not previously known. He captures his love’s lips once more, pushing his tongue into his mouth, being met with the same curiosity. Balancing himself on the pew beneath a statue of the goddess for worship, the prince spread his legs just wide enough for Byleth to slide between.

Dimitri was aching for release, _ begging _ for it, tenting his own pants with arousal between twitching legs. Byleth’s deft fingers stroked the underside of that bulge, admiring the rosy, slack-jawed expression his prince made when he rolled his head back. 

Though this was one area in which Byleth remained wholly inexperienced, he had seen this enough times in travels to understand how this process goes. Perhaps the best method of learning he could employ here would be kinesthetic. 

Lavishing Dimitri’s jaw in small kisses on the path down, Byleth takes a kneel between Dimitri’s legs, which the prince tries to follow until his body does not permit him. 

Pushing the steel of his armour away, Byleth tugs on the lace that binds the front of Dimitri’s pants together, running his mouth over Dimitri’s stiff length which pulled the fabric of his smallclothes tightly. 

“Long have I waited, and hoped, for this moment,” the prince breathed, sliding his gloved fingers into the layers of Byleth’s hair.

Byleth tried desperately to recall those private moments he caught glimpses of, behind drawn curtains and beneath wood tables. Pleasuring a man seemed formulaic, but until Dimitri, Byleth had never felt compelled to return the interest that had once been offered to him.

A tantalizingly slow draw from beneath the cotton of his undergarments left Dimitri practically panting.

Gripping the base of his shaft, mouth obscured by the shadows cast by the votive candles which sat along Dimitri’s right and left side, Byleth runs the wet inside of his lips along his length. 

From the tightened pull of his hair, Byleth knew that what he had been doing succeeded. It was not often that he had ever backed down from a challenge, but gazing at Dimitri’s size seemed to almost intimidate him.

Yet, observing Dimitri’s expression - with his brow twisted in pleasure, canines dug into his bottom lip - turned Byleth on.

All he could think about is how to control this barbarous man, lacking restraint to his touch.

So, perhaps control was the answer he seeked. 

“You can’t finish until I let you.”

Barely able to voice his agreement, Dimitri stammers a ‘_ yes, professor _’ before letting his head roll back.

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you, Dimitri. Don’t turn away.”

His legs were trembling now; where his teacher kneels, head lazily pressed against the inner curve of his thigh. There was no way he could last, but if Byleth told him to, he must. He absolutely must.

Without argument, Dimitri turns to face his beloved professor again, watching him intently. Disgusted by himself, and the way that Byleth’s flushed face and half-lidded eyes made him want to ruin his body. He looked so lascivious as he licked his cock, and the tightness of his hand around him, and the saliva which hung from his reddened lips drew hunger from him unlike anything he’s known before. 

After a deep breath, Byleth wrapped his lips around the prince’s length and began to take him in.

Unaccustomed to the feeling of moist warmth, Dimitri’s hips bucked involuntarily, pushing himself further into Byleth’s mouth than intended. 

_ I want to tear you up _ , his mind scrambles to place his impulse into words; _ I want to fuck you until you can’t walk anymore. _

Byleth guides Dimitri’s length further into his throat with his tongue, straining to control his gag reflex as his tip brushes against the back of his throat.

The tightness of his professor’s throat elicits a strung out moan, and he guides his bobbing head with his hand and fist full of green hair.

Alternating between taking his flesh into his mouth, and licking the tip of his shaft with deftness, Dimitri couldn’t stand the wait anymore. 

“Please, Professor - I - I can’t wait any longer -”

As Byleth pulled away, with thin strands of pre-cum hanging from his lips, he slowed the pump to his hands with a tighter grip.

“You can finish. I’ll let you decide how.”

Dipping under Byleth’s hands, Dimitri stroked himself quickly - rhythmically, and guided the professor’s lips to his length once more. Matching the pacing of his own hand, he pushed Byleth further onto him, thrusting his hips as control fell from him. Faster, harder, _ deeper _ \- and as Byleth choked out Dimitri’s name, full of his cock, Dimitri came. Settled at the back of his professor’s throat, release washed over him; he felt the warmth of his own cum pushing out quickly, making Byleth choke.

Even with tears welling in his eyes, he pushed through Dimitri’s load, swallowing everything he could, before he pulled away.

Dimitri was left shivering; legs still tense with orgasm.

Byleth crawled on to his lap, face and eyes still flushed red.

With his hand, he gently covered Dimitri’s eye. And kissed him.

Though it had been years since Dimitri could taste any identifiable flavours, he recognised the saltiness in Byleth’s saliva instantly. 

_ Disgusting. _


	4. IV.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scars tell stories, don't they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a partial Fade to Black (TM) - I didn't want to write several in-detail sex sequences without some gushing. Let there be emotional reconciliation!
> 
> Technically, this was written before I decided that church head was a good idea. So, like, whatever. Run with it.

Cloth unwinds and drapes to the floor with a pleasant pat. 

Though, the sound of metal clanking as it hits the ground is much less pleasant to the ears.

The former Blue Lions students had taken residence elsewhere in the monastery, citing their physical growth and _ ‘adult needs’ _ as a reason to avoid their previous dormitories. This raised a few chuckles amongst the staff that once cared for these young soldiers, who still see the image of their youthful days regardless of the clear stress that now wears on their features.

This left Byleth and Dimitri with more than enough privacy in the prince’s old room, unphased by the ebb and flow of time and the cycles of weather that have beaten against this fortress over the last five and a half years. 

Until this day, Byleth had never seen Dimitri’s body. Unlike the other students, who oft changed in front of each other, or stripped their jackets during training, Dimitri went through a tremendous effort to keep his skin covered at all times.

Bodies are bodies, but perhaps for all the shame Byleth felt about his own lack of a beating heart, Dimitri had felt compounded.

And Byleth’s own body was hardly one he had been willing to show to anyone.

When he was stripped of his black armour, which was decorated with cracks and dents, he wore a neck-length shirt that conformed to the dips of his torso.

Comparatively, Byleth had always been modestly dressed. Even in afterhours, he slipped from his own armour into a button-down collared shirt and tunic.

In a rather strange turn of events, neither of them had truly ever seen the other in such a state of undress. 

“I… I’m sorry, I’m rather embarrassed…”

With silent acknowledgement, Byleth snaked his arms around Dimitri’s waist, ear pressed to his upper back.

_ It’s faster now, _ he noted.

Dimitri, far too abashed for his own good, laid his hands on top of Byleth’s, which rested on his abdomen. 

“Professor, what you’re about to see… it is an unpleasant sight for anyone to behold. Though I wear this skin proudly, I cannot help but feel that others may not share my views.”

Leaning his head, and incomparable weight, onto Dimitri’s shoulder, Byleth can’t help but glower at the thought of the harm he must have endured over the years.

“It is not my place to judge you.”

A nod in response.

With the concession in mind, Byleth begins to pull the taller man’s shirt up over his chest - this was otherwise a fruitless struggle without the assistance of his target. He could not match Dimitri’s growth spurt, not without stumbling.

When that black shirt came loose over his head, and draped on to his forearms, it revealed a number of different things about Dimitri.

For one, there were long, pale cuts and lines across his back, with some discolouration along his ribs. One ran nearly vertically up his spine, stretched. 

_ You’ve grown much taller than you were. I can’t imagine how agonized you must have felt. _

Byleth slid his hand along his shoulder and spine, before catching himself and stopping short.

“These are long healed. Nine years has let my skin mostly recover. I wear them proudly, as I earned these scars from protecting a dear friend.”

“ … Dedue?”

“Yes, his life means so much to me. Back then, I was much younger. I had thrown myself through debris and soldiers to protect him.”

“And now he protects you.”

A wonderful chuckle shakes the older man’s torso.

“I suppose you’re right about that. He… is like family to me. Like a brother.”

Byleth can’t stop the smile which pulls at his lips. 

  
There was a recent scar. One earned through loss. A child he once taught swordplay to raised a sword against him, digging its blade beneath Dimitri’s shoulder, into his back, into the nerves beneath. 

Rodrigue saved his life, but in turn, passed away, leaving his headstrong but heartbroken son behind.

“Your shoulder… does it still hurt?”

Taken aback by the topic, though he was aware of its impending nature, the prince hesitated before speaking:

“It does, every now and then. When I move in battle, it can be a bit inconveniencing.” flexing his digits in and out of a fist gave Byleth the impression that he was minimizing his pain again.

So lightly, with the tip of his pale fingertips, the ex-mercenary takes that fist into his own. Cradling those calloused fingers. 

“Felix… he won’t speak to me much anymore. I feel that as a leader, I’ve disappointed him… and as a friend, I have betrayed his trust.” 

Dimitri turns, revealing his chest and abdomen to Byleth, face flushed.

The Prince was… how could he explain this?

He was rather toned. He had always had a taller, larger stature. However, in the five years of being a vagabond, the man hadn’t lost muscle mass. 

_ Am I… am I flushed? My face feels warm. _

On top of his toned skin lay a number of different scars. Curiosity about the ‘x’ shaped indentation on his armour had plagued Byleth’s naturally observant mind, so to finally have visible proof of his theory felt somewhat vindicating.

Yet horrifying.

Across the right side of his chest was a jagged scar to match his armour; one so hastily made, Byleth wondered if it was self-inflicted. 

Byleth presses his lips above the scar, heartache pooling in his sea green eyes. There was a connection there, one that let Byleth feel some of Dimitri’s emotions - the ones he had worked so hard to lock away. And though the boar prince’s heart beat eagerly from the opposite side of his chest, it gave him a sense of reassurance to know that Dimitri was still _ alive _. 

Perhaps knowing him breathed humanity back into this walking doll, without a heartbeat.

* * *

White sheets twist under the movements of their bodies.

With shaking hands, Dimitri held his professor’s jaw and neck. He placed small kisses along the length of pale skin where mint hair laid messily. Byleth sighed, comforted by the touch of his student who he had fallen for apace. 

They sat within each other’s embrace, on the mattress and sheets held up by the cedar wood frame of Dimitri’s academy bed.

For a dorm, Dimitri’s room hadn’t felt lived in - observation could tell a clear story: even as a young man, the Kingdom prince had trouble sleeping, and rarely utilized his personal space. Though the desk had shown some strain of use, the room otherwise seemed lacking in habitation. 

A mercenary, turned educator, and now vessel for a _ god _, had somehow developed a poignancy for this young prince, who had so clearly been struggling with his unwellness long before they had met.

Dimitri rested his forehead in the crook of Byleth’s neck, breathing softly against his skin.

_ I can’t imagine what would have happened to you had I not been here. Had I not… _

Languidly brushing his jaw against the older man’s own, Byleth’s forehead knotted with uncertainty, bringing a sharpness to his eyes that he hadn’t vividly felt in years.

_ If anything happened to you, I don’t know what I would do. I don’t know who I would be. _

_ It was you that moved me. It was guiding you, and the Blue Lions, that made me feel. _

_ To see you suffer so deeply… to know that I could not do anything to stop you from hurting yourself. _

_ I should have been there. _

The gap between them closed.

Rain poured from the sky, filling the void of noise with the patter of water streaming against stone. The slow, repetitive sound calmed Dimitri’s heart, as he delicately lowered Byleth’s frame to the pillows beneath them. 

They kiss again, lapping at each other’s lips as if the act of pulling away would separate them eternally.

Dimitri’s cradles Byleth’s head in his hands, thumbing his cheek, tracing the curves of his alluring face.

When Byleth forced his eyes open from their comfortably closed state, he was met with a worrying expression; Dimitri’s features wore distress evening from brow to lip, and in an effort to shy away from his own transparency, the prince avoided the set of viridescent eyes that wearily rest on his appearance.

So he caressed the Faerghus heir’s face, not minding the patterns of the movements he made across his cheeks.

Dimitri leaned into the warmth of his slender fingers and palm, and cradled those fingers within his own. 

“I apologize, Professor. I did not expect to be overcome with such emotion…”

“If you aren’t ready, I will wait as long as you need. Your comfort matters most to me.”

The prince shook his head in disagreement, blonde hair cascading over his face, over his black eyepatch which clung tightly above the curve of his upper cheekbone. 

“I am as ready as I will ever be,” he whispers.”I have been dreaming of this moment for almost six years now.”

“You have dreamt of me?”

Grazing pale lips on the curve of his mentor’s palm, and hooded eyes guiding his look downward.

“It was the only reprieve I had, as I traveled. I longed for your guidance...”

Recalling Manuela’s advice, Byleth initiated by sliding a hand down the prince’s torso, sending chills up his abdomen. His fingers danced along Dimitri’s waistline, and then further down, cupping the curve of Dimitri’s crotch.

A hitched breath slipped from his lips, almost masked by the downpour pressing against his window.

“I wanted your touch.”

Byleth had never considered himself a libidinous man. For all of his life, he had never felt attraction towards anyone.

Before he had come to teach at Garreg Mach, he hardly felt anything at all; however, in the moment of feeling Dimitri’s hips roll eagerly into his touch, Byleth couldn’t help but hum with excitement.

He would help his highness feel again. He would feel, again. If he would be allowed to. 

“_ Ah _ \- pro - _ Byleth _,” he breathes, “it’s difficult for me to… I…”

Following his look, Byleth was able to discern that Dimitri had been worried about his ability to feel pleasure. Though his expression betrayed that concern, he could tell that the stimulation may not be entirely from his sexual desires.

“... Is there something that could help?”

Byleth bluntly presented a question, to which Dimitri stifled his panic towards.

A momentary pause felt like ages as he wound up to willpower to be honest.

“I want to…”

Eager ears, waiting on edge.

“I want to let loose.”

“Speak plainly, Dimitri.” Byleth commands, shooting waves of alertness up Dimitri’s body.

Something about the sternness in his voice stirred hunger within him, and he could feel himself edging closer to something untamed.

“I cannot bear to look at you like this. Something in me wants to ravish your body, to do the things that have plagued my mind for seasons. I want to mark you. I could never - not that I don’t _ want _ to, but I-”

A rather smug smile pulled at Byleth’s lips.

“Ever the polite student.”

“Professor… is now _really_ an appropriate time to tease me?”

Smug becomes adoring, and Byleth’s brow curves with worry.

“... Dimitri,” aversion. “I would like to experience this with you.”

“I feel the same!” A somewhat childish sense of excitement washed over them both. 

“So please, pace yourself, but my body… it is yours.”

“As is mine,” he finishes, with almost biblical recitation.

* * *


	5. V.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (cw: sadism)
> 
> I felt that Dimitri would be attracted to the Ashen Demon, even if he convinced himself that wasn't the case.

Dimitri dreamed of laying with him.

Long before their reciprocated feelings became clear, back in his better days.

Small things grew into larger urges: lectures became nigh impossible without his mind wandering to what it would be like to sleep with his professor. The inappropriate and intrusive thoughts of running his hands along Byleth’s hips, with quick and hard thrusts, pushing --

“Your Highness, are you feeling ill? Your face is reddened.”    
  
Dedue, ever observant. 

“Ah, I may be feeling rather under the weather. It has been difficult to sleep as of late. Perhaps I’ll head back to my room after this, for the sake of an early day tomorrow.”

“That is uncharacteristic of you. Normally, you would be insistent to stay active regardless of your ailments. Frustratingly so.”

“My ability to lie fails me again, it seems.”

The prince could not doge his vassal’s stern stare, regardless of how hard he may try to do so. 

As class came to an end, Byleth stepped up to the desk which Dimitri quickly worked to unoccupy. 

With a tense neck, Dimitri forces himself to meet his professor’s gaze, plastering a polite smile on his face.

“What can I help you with today?”

Byleth’s expression was somewhat unreadable, but he could have sworn that he briefly looked… enamored?

“Do not wear yourself so thin. Your work was somewhat sloppy today, that’s unlike you.”

How he could deliver praise with punishment perplexed the young prince more than anything else.

His professor parted with a touch on his shoulder, for reassurance.

But Dimitri was in a rush. He needed to alleviate himself, to get these thoughts out of his head as soon as he could.

_ Being amatory towards my professor of all things - what kind of awful degenerate have I become? _

Alone, in his dorm room, laying upon cerulean sheets with his pants unzipped, he relieved himself.

Too ashamed to face the truth, he covered his eyes with his unoccupied arm. He’d stroke himself rhythmically to the idea of Byleth wrapping his soft lips around him. He’d try to emulate the pacing of his mouth on his length. The smile he’d wear as he’d praise Dimitri for what a good job he’s doing holding back. 

And when he pushed over the edge, imagining what it would be like to release on his own  _ professor _ ’s face, to cover those beautiful lips, cheeks and deep blue eyes in cum, to see his professor’s surprised and flushed face; guilt washed over him, and he’d find himself curled on his bed, shaking with anxiety, tears brimming at the curves of his eyes.

He felt nothing but immense remorse.

This continued for the year-long duration of their friendship.

  
  


It became a strange obsession; so Dimitri became fixated on his professor’s mouth - his smile, his laugh.

It was wonderful, but thorny. Dimitri knew that, inside, there was an ugly monster which raged beneath this mask he wore so well in front of others. 

And though his heart raced when they fought together on the battlefield, the hardness between his legs at seeing Byleth covered in blood disgusted him. The way Byleth did not hesitate to kill, and the coldness in his eyes when he did turned him on more than anything else.

_ You’re so beautiful when you’re at war,  _ unushered.

He told Byleth once, as they spent time alone together, that he could not trust a man who killed mercilessly; who looked upon the enemy with callous eyes, as he cut them down. Dimitri was beside himself in frustration at his own hypocrisy, recalling Felix’s sharp words:

_ I remember the way you killed your victims. _

_ How you watched them suffer. _

A rush of memories flooded back into his mind; the images of thrusting steel into soldiers begging for mercy. Watching as the light escaped their eyes. Observing the viscera that spilled from their mouths and bodies like claret paint splattered on a canvas. His heart was racing in his chest, beating with vehemence, as the thrill of  _ proioxis  _ washed over him.

On his face was an agape, bellicose smile. His hands dripped with fresh blood.

At fifteen, he had already become a monster.

As his mental state deteriorated, as the strain of stress began to break his carefully crafted human guise, he could not make the distinction between carnal and sexual desires. 

_ I loved you; but you could never know. No, you may never know. I will take this to my grave.  _

* * *

  
On his 20th birthday, or so he thought based on the cycles of  _ weather _ of all things- dates became muddled when he lived life as a fugitive - he started to have a recurring intrusive, waking nightmare. 

If it wasn’t dreaming of his family’s assassination, it was something far more sinister.

In the garden of Garreg Mach monastery, Dimitri would run his hands through Byleth’s beautiful creamy mint hair, which shone with an aberrant luster in the sunlight, and hold the curve of his jaw. As the sun set with a blood-red glow, he slowly wrapped his fingers around Byleth’s neck, watching as his teacher hitches his short breaths beneath the tightening leather of his gloves.

Breaths become coughing, then strained heaving, and Dimitri’s cold blue eyes stayed focused on the way he writhed under his touch. Smiling, sensuously, depraved. Byleth struggled to pull himself away, to release Dimitri’s vice grip.

_ Professor, you’re so fragile. _

_ Your pale, lovely neck beneath my fingers is so easy to... _

And as Byleth stammers out silent words, tongue sliding to the curve of his top teeth to speak strained words:

“ _ I lo… _ ”

Dimitri would bring his hands together, sending a horrid  _ snap _ through the air, and leaving his professor’s limp body in his hands. 

It always left a sickening knot in his stomach. 

And to Dimitri, it was the truth he lived. Byleth was long gone, and it was as if he had taken his own life, with those bloodied hands. His carelessness. His impulse. 

At least, as far as he’d known. 

He missed his professor’s radiant love, the sharpness of his eyes which saw right through him. 

He missed fighting by his side, hurting by his side.

He missed Byleth more than anything else.

And when the night was young and twilight cast its violet glow over the sky above, Dimitri began his hunt again. Aspiring to go to Enbarr to tear Edelgard’s head from her own shoulders, to make her go through the pain he had suffered through all these years tenfold.

Yes… that is why he carried on.

The dark figures who lurked behind him like a vignette demanded retribution. They wanted to be saved.

Wearing gravestones around his neck, he would walk onward, with death as a partner.


	6. VI.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri had been framed, and was dead. To the world - his world, and himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a little while, sorry! I've ben swamped with work. I wanted to get this one out of the door as fast as possible. This covers two major things: the framed murder/execution and The Eye Thing. Though, originally, that latter scene was completely different.
> 
> Super short, but they're important. Did someone ask for glowing eyes during crest activation? No, you're getting it anyway.

Everything around him had fallen into disarray. 

The Empire began its war against the Kingdom and Alliance to bring all of Fódlan to its knees. With his step-sister bearing the reins of her new position as Emperor, as well as the mask of the villain who had led the assassination of his family, the Flame Emperor. Disassociation tore his mind away from the town which burned before him. His brethren in arms, and friends, slowly dispersing into the chaos that had befallen his beloved Monastery - never to be seen again, if he were to fall here.

_ Edelgard _, he hissed between breaths and clenched teeth.

The expression which clung to his face seemed depraved, lost, separated from the person he built himself up to be.

And her eyes - her violet eyes - burning rings into his mind like a forge.

When he walked the barren, grassy fields stained with gore, dragging his feet along the plains, he realized just how much of a fool he had been to welcome such a vicious, ashen-haired creature like her into his life. How dare he tell her to carve her own path? What a joke. To dig a blade into the throats of those who stood by you? To sunder your family - your _ mother _ for what ends?

In his hazy vision, multiple blurred figures bearing the colours of the Alliance, Kingdom and Empire respectively moved and stirred in ways he could not grasp. Tired as he was, he couldn’t help but laugh dryly in their approach, remarking this entire incident to be the cruelest form of comedy. 

His body felt heavier as exhaustion overtook him, and when those soldiers in a familiar shade of cerulean neared him with marred caution, he pointed the sword which rested heavily in his gloved hands toward them.

“Don’t be mistaken. I will run you through. All of you _ will _ die by my blade.”

It took ten men to hold him down, to restrain him long enough to be jailed, enough beating to leave him sore and bruised; enough force to slam his head into the ground and render him unconscious for the long trip ahead.

Though he fell in and out of awareness, he was able to make out a distinct voice:

_ “... Make sure no harm befalls him, for now… he must return to the capital at once.” _

He struggled to raise his head against the pressure of steel plate, only able to make a feminine figure out through the corners of his bloodied eyes before darkness overtook his vision.

  


Days go by, then perhaps weeks, or longer. 

Dimitri sits with his back against the stone walls of a prison somewhere within the walls of Fhirdiad. Autumn had come and gone again, leaving the air chilled and the bars of his only window rimy with the brush of days old snow. 

His algid look had lived in nothing but festering abhorrence. 

Sunlight filtered through metal, leaving dual beams by his side, casting an elongated deep blue silhouette across the floor beneath him.

“I will kill her, father. I will kill her…” voiceless execration rises from his ribs, breathlessly and painfully groaning through wounds, “I will not rest until you know peace.”

_ Footsteps - not too far away, either. They must be doing their rounds. _

Through a metal coif and helmet: “Prince Dimitri, avunculicide is punishable by death. Though Cornelia so graciously cared for the royal family, you turned your back on your heritage - on your own blood.”

The prince’s eyes stay fixated on the space in front of him, at nothing.

“Enjoy this mercy she has provided you, until your final day comes tomorrow.”

It was difficult to maintain his position upright. Time had eaten away at his strength, leaving him powerless against the tight, magic-infused metal which bound his hands. He could only muster enough energy to repeat his creed through drawn out oration, never stumbling on its delivery.

  


“I promise, I will…”

From behind the guard who chided the trapped sovereign came the ringing sound of metal against metal, followed by screams.

Dimitri’s ears perked up at the sound, immediately able to identify it: a sword against armour, and an impale - through flesh. Someone had made it into his holding cell, be it friend of foe.

“Intruder - intruder! Alert the --” unfinished. Flesh tore like a gutted fish, leaving the sickening scent of bile heavy in the air.

Before the blurred image of the guard before him could react, a man rushed from behind and ran his sword clean through, piercing the soldier’s abdomen through to the iron bars separating him from Dimitri, like a warning staked upon a church door. Blood slipped from the edge of the blade on to the floor before him, red contrasting vividly against the long-frosted stone.

In a shivering, unsteady voice, Dimitri addressed the hooded figure:   
  
“If you’re here to kill me, you will die trying.”

After rustling through the dying soldier before him’s armour, this man - clad in a deep brown, heavy-weight cloak - retrieved a ring of slender silver keys, the sound of their clanging movement within the cell’s lock dragging the prince’s attention upward.

As the man approached, the waxen light of winter day reveals features that Dimitri knew all too well.

He wanted to rush up, but the state of his body could not allow him. _ Pathetic _, he remarks to himself, disgusted by his own inability to function. Metal groaned in his movement, locking him in place.

“Dedue…? Is that you?” weak words met distraught eyes, as his Vassal knelt before him, taking his scarred hands within his own.

Along Dimitri’s wrists and palms were darkened red marks, as if they had been burned. 

_ This Magus woman, Cornelia. What a filthy wretch she had been to frame him. _

“Yes, your Highness.” the familiarity set off warmth in his heart, and emotion welled within him for the first time in weeks.

Beneath Dedue’s calloused fingers laid Dimitri’s own - pale, and only vaguely warm to the touch. He looked wan, and exhausted. The sight of him sent spikes of rage through his own nerves and spine.

“How did you find me? How did you know I would be here?”

Disappointed in his speed, Dedue relayed his choices to his liege, who fought to stay awake, relieved to have come before further harm had befallen him. The tale brought life to his dulled eyes and swaying head.

Sighing with certainty, Dedue stood up, removing the clasp of the cloak and folding it neatly within his arms.

Retrieving the sword from the knight’s body, which slumped against the cell, he inspected the steel carefully - then ran his eyes over Dimitri’s frame.

_ That restraint can be broken, but how? It’s clearly infused with magic. _

Weighing the blade carefully against the metal cuffs which bound his hands above his head, Dedue began to quietly test the strength of them.

As steel met, the touch brought light heat to the metal with an orange glow.

A restraint that punishes its captive with burning hot metal. This is a trick for taming a wild beast, not for _ you _. It was clear that the prince had gauged his ability to escape a number of times, to no avail. Those marks ran along his wrists all the way to his forearms. It’d been nothing short but a struggle of diminishing strength. 

“Your Highness, I am going to save you,” Dedue urged, “I will not let you die here.”

Blue eyes met brown, and in a well-practiced glance, Dimitri nodded.

“... and we will return to kill them, together. To rip Cordelia’s cold heart from her unbeating chest. To kill _ her. _”

With hesitation, the Duscur man nodded with solidarity.

“Yes, my lord.”

Bracing the impact of his swing, Dimitri hung his head.

With practiced momentum, Dedue let loose his blade, being met with unnatural resistance. Sparks ran through the air like ember, metal hissing under the strain of weight.

Though the blade had passed through a large portion of the cuffs, it left a dent of twisted chains which clung to each other in an effort to stay together.

He swung again.

The chains remained dented, and unbreakable with reinforced steel.

“They are going to send backup,” Dimitri whispers, “You should leave before then. Do not waste your life for me.”

After a brief pause for thought, Dedue shook his head.

“I refuse to leave this place without you.”

Fumbling from behind the prince’s head, Dedue tests this enchanted metal with a light touch. 

The moment his skin made contact with the rung of metal which held his liege’s hands in place, it seared the surface of his leather gloves. Noting their increasing looseness, he moved his hands above the chains.

He had realized what had to be done.

And for all that Dimitri had endured for him during the Tragedy of Duscur, Dedue would repay in tenfold. For it was him who so graciously spared his life, and took him in as family.

Feeling the tug of Dedue’s movements, Dimitri observed as far as his neck would allow him to. 

Bracing himself against the cell wall, Dedue took the iron cuffs which clung to Dimitri’s wrists and the rotary above, and pulled.

The metal groaned beneath the touch, showing some signs of tear.

The smell of burnt leather fills the room, nauseatingly. 

Clenching his jaw to stay quiet while the chains seared the inner curves of his hand, he pulled until they let loose, slamming to the floor with a loud thump.

His gloves had been torn and melted in waves along his palms, leaving deep red marks where the heat had broken through the fabric.

Dimitri glanced up at him, eyes filled with what seemed like hope mixed with fury.

With every sense of urgency he could muster, Dedue took the cloak which once hid his face from the Kingdom capital’s battalion, and wrapped it around Dimitri’s shoulders. 

“You must go.”

Twisting his hands in place, trying to regain feeling in his digits, Dimitri pushed himself from the ground, stabilized by his retainer’s forearm. 

“Come with me.” 

Dedue avoided the glance of his Highness’ eyes, which awaited confirmation.

“Why must you dodge my gaze so?”

Hesitant to respond, his vassal wore silence like a shawl, hiding what he had known all these weeks since his lord’s abduction.

This jail felt like a cage for a wild beast waiting to escape. In the weeks that swept by him quickly, his mind lacked clarity and his hands had been able to grasp anything within reach. No, he had been unable to keep tight on the reins, and rancor burned in his chest.

His legs felt heavy as he pushed up the narrow flight of stairs which separated him from freedom for this past month.

As Dedue threw open the door which connected the holding area behind him to an area within the capital city, they were greeted with the garish light of winter, as the sun shone ceaselessly unto the snow-covered ground around them. Unadjusted to the brightness of day, Dimitri twisted his eyes shut, frustrated at how infirmed he felt.

Voices echoed from the courtyard of the royal castle - guards shouted as they arrived in droves, aiming steel at the two men who emerged bloody and battered, fabric whipping in the strong wind which billowed and tossed flurries of snow in the air. 

They were surrounded.

Finally, everything had made sense. Dedue had come here, for him, with no intention to leave.

No, he intended to die here. 

In order to save one life, he was willing to sacrifice his own.

Dimitri grabbed his shoulder, desperately begging his vassal to stay with him, _ please _\-- 

“You mustn't. You are Faerghus’ future, your Highness. You are _ Duscur _’s only chance. I cannot allow you to die here.”

Stepping forward, the prince steadied his stance, locking eyes with his retainer.

They both nod, sharing a moment of remorse in their eyes.

Before them began the descent of Cornelia’s cavalry, which pushed towards Dedue and his highness in an attempt to apprehend them both.

_ Seize them! Make sure the prince doesn’t escape! _

“... I’m sorry. I’m so _ sorry _ \- Dedue!”

With a gentle shove, Dedue pushed Dimitri backwards, motioning for the back exit he had cleared on his way in. 

Glancing over his shoulder as he let adrenaline carry him, Dimitri’s heart bore a weight that he’d only felt when his professor slipped from his view.

Loss, again, grips him. Whispers of what he once knew slips, and between the sound of clashing which inched further away with each step, and the snow which obscured his footsteps, he’d come to what true isolation felt like.

* * *

_ How long have I been walking? _

_ I have to survive. _

_ I have to live, to kill her. _

_ Familiar faces will stand in front of me, as shields made of flesh and bone. I will tear them down, one by one until I reach the Imperial throne. _

_ She stole everything from me. _

_ My family. _

_ Father, am I disappointing you? Have I failed my mission to get revenge for you all? _

_ My friends. _

_ Dedue, I’m sorry. I could not protect you again. Ingrid, Sylvain… Felix… you knew all along, didn’t you? Ever since that day, I haven’t been the same. Yet you still smiled, broke bread with me, stayed by my side, regardless of what I’ve done. _

_ I’ve become a monster. _

_ Or have I always been this way? Destroying those I hold dear to me, over and over, with reckless abandon, in order to satisfy some selfish goal? _

_ … Professor. You did not deserve to die. Not for a wretch like me. _

_ Yet, your voice does not reach me. Have you forsaken your desire for revenge? Have you turned your back on me? Why must you refuse to guide me? _

He had finally reached a small town near the border between the Kingdom, and adjacent Imperial territories. The trek was long, far longer than he had anticipated, and his still-fresh injuries stung with every movement. Diapilated by time and weather, a series of small wood and stone houses stretched across an opening in the forest before him, illuminated only by small torches which clung to iron bars before closed doors.

Night fell over the wooded landscape before him, and soon after, he found Kingdom guards patrolling. In quiet voices, they relayed rumours passed through the ranks of their own army.

“Did you hear... ? The Crown Prince was executed for murdering Grand Duke Rufus - his own _ kin _ \- but there was no body shown.”   
  
“It might’ve been too gruesome to show. You know Cornelia wouldn’t hesitate otherwise. She was a practitioner of the healing artes, you know.” 

He couldn’t help but huff with amusement. These fools had no idea the things he had been through, in his escape, in his travels. In his homelessness, where he wandered aimlessly for days on end. This marks month two since Garreg Mach had fallen, and he had been eager to act.

So until the right day came, he would continue on.

* * *

Sleeping became an impossible task. 

Whiting away the hours of the night, Dimitri would often find himself traveling the parameters of the vacant shack among a mostly abandoned village he had started to take shelter in. He had been operating on barely enough supplies to survive away from his normally available resources, and though he had become used to hunger pangs rolling over his stomach, he kept himself active enough to work through the pain.

Rain fell from the sky, along the prince’s strained features, matting his blonde hair to the curve of his cheekbones and jaw.

As water fell upon the trees, which had become lush in the spring warmth, the sound of their impact upon leaves heavy with water masked everything. 

Perhaps to someone who hadn’t been living so close to death for the past few months.

Month eight, or so he thought. Time was of the essence, but when days were lost to jail cells and travel, it had become difficult to discern. 

Suspire choked by the sound of heavy footsteps from behind, Dimitri turned to face the unending darkness which surrounded him.

A short few feet away was a gilded lantern, which shone with a bright orange glow against a midnight sky and even darker woods. The light it emitted illuminated silver plate, which curved over a body. Beneath the armour was a scarlet red, which burned brightly in his mind.

The same scarlet red Edelgard donned.

Had he been such a fool, to not be more cautious about where he tread?

Matted grass and rotwood crunched beneath his every step, covered by nothing but the patter of water as it fell from the sky.

He had long abandoned the Blaiddyd royal blue cape, which once hung from his left shoulder, masking his identity as the throne’s heir in front of others.

A pretender rose up, spilling poison into the ears of Faerghus’ broken and weary people: a pulpit in human skin.

Ducking beneath the flora in front of him, he kept a close eye on the guard who had clearly been separated from the rest of his battalion.

It was now, or never. He could not hesitate even for a moment, and waste this opportunity that Dedue had granted him with his life.

  


Taking a deep breath, Dimitri stepped forward from the bramble he hid among, still crouched with his always accompanying short spear in hand.

As soon as the man before him became aware he was being watched in return, he took off into a sprint, knowing that this more than vital information _ had _ to be relayed back to his commander.

It was no use. Dimitri had been far too fast for him, propelled purely on adrenaline. 

Lunging forward with spear in hand, he had been more than prepared to run this man through before asking for his name or title.

The soldier in dull silver armour reacted as fast as he could, brandishing a short sword and aiming it before him.

The Imperial guard gasped with fear, gripping the steel blade between his hands, letting the lantern he held slam to the ground. Dimitri towered over him, with a partially self-fashioned spear branded. Visible.

“_ Y-You! _ The Emperor has strict orders to kill you on sight if you were found alive!”

Dimitri laughs darkly, rolling his head and shoulders back. His now partially grown-out hair is slick from the rain which fell and masked their words.

He was bleeding from his abdomen. Beneath his black clothing which clung to his abdomen was a slit, where the blade had parted his skin cleanly. 

A wound he doesn’t remember receiving. It didn’t hurt.

_ Ah, that must have been from when you were running. _

“So, will you? Or will you die, like the cornered animal you are?” 

With a regained sense of fortitude, the solder lunges forward with an underhand slash. Within the split seconds between the edge of the blade and Dimitri’s backstep, he is struck with an excruciating migraine, one so painful, that it renders his reflexes slower than usual.

The blade made contact.

With the width of its sharp edges, it tore into Dimitri’s right eye, slicing into the skin and, more importantly, his pupil. Shocked with the pain of this sudden laceration, he pulls back, gasping for air between laboured breaths.

  


“No, they have to know - I _ have _ to -” fear constricted his every word. He knew he was in danger. He explicitly knew from the emperor’s own mouth as she spoke out to her army: that man is a monster, and will not hesitate to kill you in any way he can. 

Adrenaline pumped through Dimitri’s heart; and through the shaking of his frame, he pushed forward, swinging the shaft of his spear around the curve of his hips and into the back of the soldier’s legs, bringing him to the ground. That wasn’t where he was trying to reach, no - his vision ran red, then black, and in his rage towards his incapacitation, he pushed the man’s head to the ground, gripping haphazardly in his narrowed view. 

Kneeling above him, it took all of his restraint not to tear him apart.

He met the gaze of this unnamed soldier, who shivered beneath him - yet, there was a sense of resolve in his eyes, beneath the fear. 

“When Emperor Edelgard finds you, you’ll know a fate far worse than death. You are far from a king, you are a _ beast _ among men. You are nothing like her.”

Blood spilled from the prince’s eye, curor clinging to his face where the blade had met the curve of his cheekbone inward. 

It coated the silver armour, and dripped onto the face of the man beneath him.

His words stung far worse than any of these wounds. And from his swaying body, his energy had started to stall.

Balling his fist up from beneath his leather gloves, Dimitri raised his arm, hissing through the pain which coursed through the right side of his body. With the soft, cool glow of his eyes, he felt a rush of strength - and heat- overtake his body. It was as if his own father guided his blood, and hands.

“Know that your death will be in _ her _ name.”


	7. VII.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix overhears something that bothers him greatly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while! I come bearing gifts in the form of two chapters that take place after Fhirdiad is reclaimed. They're both short but I wanted to highlight some outer perspectives.

Candlelight burns brightly in the darkness of Fhirdiad’s royal castle’s dens. Though everyone had been split amongst several long-vacant rooms, this castle felt fuller in that moment than it had in all of Dimitri’s young years after the Tragedy of Duscur. 

It had been almost a decade since the prince had been home, and  _ felt at  _ home. 

Though he had left his late father’s room locked, Rodrigue had pushed to have him open the doors, as a sort of step into the shoes of regency when the time felt appropriate.

Rodrigue had taken the edge of a blade aimed to cut through Dimitri’s heart. One life, for another, yet again. Though Dedue found his way home, back to Dimitri’s side, Rodrigue would not do the same. He would leave behind a mourning son, abandoned by kin whose legs against the current of life had been pulled so eagerly by the undertow. Felix had been left alone, again, and again, and again. All he had was Sylvain, Ingrid, and Dimitri begrudgingly - and the prince knew more than anyone else that he failed his dear friend more than anyone else. In his attempt to atone for his sins, Dimitri rang the sanctus bells, calling for retribution in the only way he knew intimately.

Guilt sends pangs to his chest, forcing a shaky sigh from his lips.

This was his own burden to carry. This would always be a boulder upon his back. Since the crown he’d yet to don stayed within his grasp, he denied this future in his anger and self-hate, turning away from the throne.

So he did carry it then, and would face its golden gleam which demanded his gaze. 

With a gentle twist of the knob, Dimitri pushed the heavy wooden doors open.

A large bedroom untouched by time stood capsuled before him. A thin layer of dust coated every surface, but it was exactly as father had left is all those years ago, a snapshot of a peaceful life torn asunder.

Above an empty fireplace was a portrait of King Lambert, young prince Dimitri and his step-mother, locked in each other’s embrace. Though Lambert and Dimitri smiled, Patricia wore a sullen expression, as if her eyes searched for something that wasn’t there.

“Father, mother… I am so sorry for what happened to you,” he whispers, tears tugging at his throat. 

He must be strong. He must. For who else could hold this country together, which teetered close on the verge of collapse? Who else could look upon the sullen faces of those who had carried on through war and despair, only to place their future within the hands of a murderer? 

“I know now, the pain you bore so readily in the face of tribulation. I know how much you desired to see your home again, to be together with your daughter… and in time, I will have to face her. I truly wish, more than anything else, to take her hand and drag her away from the darkness which has consumed her.”

In private, he shed tears he had bottled in his chest. 

Nothing could make him comprehend why Edelgard had gone down this path, riddled with agony and death. She walked that road alone, yet with the solidarity of her classmates who had risen to protect their homeland. Their futures.

So they were cut down.

One after another, Byleth had raised his arms against them.

Their supplicating voices begging him for sympathy, asking why their teacher would turn his blade against them. Against  _ her _ .

But in order to protect this damaged man, to pull him from the edge in which he stood, Byleth killed his own students. To strive for the ideals that made the Blue Lions as honourable as they had been since the day they came together as a house. To save a country. 

To protect those who were precious to him. Those he  _ could _ save.

It was only then Dimitri realized the catalyst of his own actions, a ripple effect through time itself. 

He had pushed his mentor to kill for him, selfishly. Cowardice had prevented them from being saved.  _ His _ cowardice. His inefficient state and human flesh covering the bones of a beast.

But much like Dedue, Felix, Sylvain, Ingrid, Annette, Ashe and Mercedes, who would die on the end of a blade to save his Highness’ life, they carried Edelgard’s vision in their hearts, unwavering.

How selfish he had been to ever put them in harm’s way.

How selfish he is, to make his mentor feel pain, over and over.

Is it not a King’s duty to let those before him fight? Is it a King’s duty _ to _ fight on behalf of his subjects?

He didn’t know what to believe anymore.

Perhaps he was too weak-willed in comparison to Edelgard, too full of sorrow to move on from the past. Yet she stood with her eyes pointed forward to a peaceful future, built upon endless sacrifice.

So, alone in his father’s room, he wept. Perhaps not the last tears he would ever cry, but the most painful.

From down the hall, the Fraldarius heir listens, struck by curiosity as he perused these castle walls for the first time since he was a child.

_ First he claims to be willing to kill for revenge, yet he still very much has a conscious. In fact, his conscious weighs far too heavy a burden. _

_ Even when we were kids… you had always guided me with a pure look in your eyes. Now, your vision is clouded with the siren call of sentimentality. Do you realize what you’ve put yourself through? What you’ve put all of us through? _

…  _ Father. What did you see in him? Why regard this man as a son? Why… why die for him…? _

Sighing from deep within his chest, Felix followed the lamps which lined the halls back to the room he and Sylvain lay in. As he unwound his armour from his body, and propped his shield up against the stone walls in preparation for an early march tomorrow, the ill-boding feeling of bereavement shot nausea through his body and his torso shivered with anxiety. As he sat on the edge of the bed, hands balled into tight fists, he felt arms snake around his waistline, and with a quick tug, yanked him out of the spiral he had fought to avoid.

“I can tell you have a lot on your mind.” 

Red hair nestles against a smaller, more lean frame, lazily pressed against Felix’s hips, and he sighs when he sees his lover sprawled out beneath crimson sheets.

“You’re prying.”

  
  
“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly one for hiding your emotions, as much as you’d like to think.”

_ Tch. _

Felix ruffled Sylvain’s hair with fanned fingers, grunting in annoyance.

“No, it’s just - that  _ boar.  _ The sight of him shedding tears over his loss disgusts me.”

Rising to an upward position, with languid half-woken arms dragging along the sheets, Sylvain hung his head over Felix’s tense shoulder. 

“Because of Glenn?”

Felix shuddered at the sound of his late brother’s name.

“... or because of your father?”

His hazel eyes darted towards the ground, wishing he could be anywhere else, but Sylvain’s arms gently weighed him down - back to reality, grinding his anxiety to a halt.

Taking Felix’s face into his hand, Sylvain guided the curve of his jaw left, and kissed him gently, with fluttered eyelashes. 

“His Highness has always had a bleeding heart. He feels loss so strongly, it drove him mad. There is nothing he wants more than to save them, even if there isn’t _anything_ to save. They’re gone, Felix.”  
  
“Yet my father threw everything away on a slim chance that he would ascend the throne. On a slim chance that he would find a reason to live - one that's still _living_.”

“The professor gave him a reason to live.”

Felix pecked Sylvain’s full lips again, hesitant. 

“I suppose I’m the fool for not wanting to see him end up on the opposite end of someone’s blade because his impulse isn’t in check. He’s lucky to have the professor’s patience.”

A smug chuckle slipped from Sylvain’s mouth as he adjusted his body, slowly lying back down. 

“You should be more honest with yourself.”

From below Felix, Sylvain stroked the empty spot on the bed, eager to share Felix’s body warmth in the brisk weather which rolled over the mountainous regions within Faerghus. Sliding the curves of his index finger and thumb to his lips, his ran his tongue along them, and with a pinch of a wick, cast the entire room into darkness. Backing into the curves of Sylvain’s body, and between his arms, Felix sighed.

“Take your own advice.”


	8. VIII.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth reflects on his father's parting gift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand part two! There are still some unposted chapters that I'm editing, but I wanted to pace out some of the levels of emotion in these chapters and give you all a break from sadness for a bit. The follow-up to this will be from Dimitri's perspective, and will deal with the boys, Ingrid and Flayn. Please look forward to it!

Winter air chilled Byleth’s hands, and he rubbed them tightly between each other to stay warm. 

Overlooking the mountains surrounding the capital from the castle’s balcony, he lost himself to the gentle breeze which tossed his pale green hair awry. 

For this short moment in time, he wished he could encapsulate the peace that settled upon this nation.

From behind approached a woman, whose shoulders were wrapped in a woven, tan shawl, who hummed a familiar tune he had heard five years past. She laughed to herself, seeing Byleth so mesmerized by the algid air, and the way his breath so clearly clouded around his mouth when he exhaled over and over.

Though wintertide wasn’t new to him, being this far into the Kingdom’s territory had brought a new sense of understanding to the chill his students had been raised in.

“It’s always like this, you know. Faerghus winters are so hard sometimes, especially when you’re alone.”

“Mercedes,” he said with a small smile. Rare as it is to see. 

Stepping to be shoulder to shoulder with him, the young nun wrapped a part of the knit cover hanging heavily on her arms around his own.

Though once professor and student, now they are equals who stand among a restored nation.

Mercedes leaned her head on his shoulder, humming into the warmth of his cloak. 

“Professor…  _ erm-  _ I apologize, that’s a rather difficult habit to drop,” she giggled.

“ _ Byleth _ ,” an arioso breath, “I need you to be honest with me.”

Curiosity pulled his eyes away from the rising sun before him.

“ … You and His Highness. You are in love, aren’t you?”

His face flushed a rosy pink, one that Mercedes herself has never seen. She gasped with joy.

“Oh I  _ knew _ it! I told Ingrid and Ann, and neither of them believed me! It was so obvious in the Academy days, with him prattling on about how wonderful your smile is. At the time, I thought it was just a school crush, but  _ now _ …”

Byleth’s surprise tied a knot between his brows.

“Oh, now…” delicate, yet slightly scarred hands tugged at the heavy twill fabric of his black coat.

“His Highness smiles for  _ you _ . It’s the first time he has smiled from his heart in a long time, even when he’s aching. You have no idea how grateful I - how grateful we  _ all _ are that we have you by our side. And his.” 

She spoke in a choked-up voice, small tears rolling down her cheeks that betrayed her happy smile. The ache which gripped her heart loosens its grip, alleviated by the idea of a future ahead of them.

“We were all worried for him, you know…? He went missing for five years, and we looked -- and when you brought him back… he just seemed so broken beyond repair.” 

A pause.

“Felix was beside himself with worry. When Dimitri escaped the capital before his execution and those rumours started to surface, he could not manage to relax. Though he may put on an air of being uncaring, Felix loves him. We all do.”

At the sight of Mercedes’ beautiful and genuine tears, Byleth felt the warmth of his own brimming at the curve of his eyes.

“Thank you for everything, Mercedes. The world would be a colder place without you.”

“Oh, no, pro- Byleth, you needn’t thank me. You two are…  _ hm _ …?” she idly presses her finger to her lips in thought.

“It’s as if the Goddess herself ordained you two to cross paths, to stay together. I believe there is a greater meaning to everything that has happened, and I hope this means that he will continue walking back into the light, with you by his side.”

Unable to quell the rush of emotions which surge through him, as memories of death and reset time flood his mind, he shed tears involuntarily, struggling to hold them back. 

Any time Dimitri had taken a hit for him, falling to the ground in pain, a soiled field as his deathbed, Byleth rewound time. He had been given the ability to warp history as he saw fit, to save his students from an untimely demise, though his chest ached with a dull pain as he threw back the hands of his own clock time and time again.

Once feeling inhuman, living solely to kill and survive, Byleth had only known Jeralt as an ally. As his son, he’d find himself drawn to standing by his father, whether it be at home, or in battle. When they spoke strategy, Byleth would sit beside him, eyes empty of light. This is the life he had known: to kill, or be killed. To live, in order to see another dawn. Yet through those triumphs came a dire need to understand the weight of human life. He killed, he could have been killed, yet Jeralt protected him. Though these foreign concepts of attachment spun in Byleth’s head, even as a young teenager, emotion was purely an observable experience.

Through travelling had shown him the sprawling sights of lush forests, stone cities and winding snow capped mountains, his sense of beauty had always seemed as far as a fingertip’s touch away.

The world seemed so ceaselessly full of wonder to everyone but him.

Foggy as his memories may be, he recalled the bright sparkles of light in the night sky stretching above him as far as he could see as he sat before the warmth of an open flame, and tilting his head so far back he’d fall to the ground, nonreactive to the pain as his head landed on the lush grass beneath him.

Jeralt would chuckle, putting a hand on the curve of Byleth’s head to check for lumps, brushing his grown-out deep teal hair which spread in a small ponytail beneath him.

“You okay, kid?”

His cerulean eyes stayed forward, infatuated with the litter of small stars above, and his silent gaze drew his father’s look upward.

“Your mother used to get lost in this sky, too. Just don’t forget to come down sometimes - you can’t lose focus, or it’ll cost you.”

Unwavering, Byleth reached out, hand grazing the air above to touch the sky.

Without voicing his curiosity, he withdrew his reach, pursed lips and impassive eyes drift back to the ground, and shut.

Those times felt so far away now. They had  _ always _ felt so far, when Byleth could only recall spots of his past, with no strand to bind them together. It was as if someone had tried to clear a chalkboard with their palm, leaving streaks of white behind where the letters and symbols had been.

Yet, in the two years he had known his students, they had urged a sense of attachment out of him that he’d only recently come to know. Once feelings felt foreign, and numb, but through Dimitri - through them all - Byleth had been able to smile, perhaps for the first time in his life, as far as he had known.

Feeling two arms wrap around his shoulders, into a tight embrace, Byleth loosened his stiffened shoulders. Mercedes learned to withhold her observations about Byleth’s emotions, knowing how dehumanizing it must have felt to be reminded of his differentiation constantly. In silence, she stood by his side, letting him work through it all.

“Mercedes… did I fail him? Did I fail you _ all _ when I disappeared?”

Tightening her grip, Mercedes shook her head into his chest, brushing sandy hair against his chin and forcing a chuckle out of him with the tickling feeling on his skin. 

“Of course it would feel that way. I imagine that for all those years, he may have feared for the worst. He had no one but himself, and none of us realized the extent of the pain he had been feeling every day.”

Byleth placed a weak hand on her shoulder, eyes observing the frost gathering along the stone railing of the balcony.

“Five years passed for me in the blink of an eye, and when I came to, he had been changed in ways I’ll never fully understand. I was insensitive to talk about the past, and compare him to the last memory of his smile I had before my fall.”

“What else could you have measured off of, really?”

Unable to come up with a retort, Byleth sighed with a heavy heart.

“If he resented me, I would understand. I would forgive him. But I could never turn my back on him.”

Releasing him from her vice grip, Mercedes pouted..

“You know, you sound just like Dimitri. Often, when I’d visit the cathedral at night, he would stand before the altar in silent prayer. After five years, I wonder if he prays to the goddess for forgiveness for what he’s done instead of those he had lost.”

“I wonder if he knows about my past. About what I’ve done as a mercenary,” Byleth knit his brow, fretting the clear hypocrisy in his own observation.

“If you were so concerned with the past, would you be standing out here smiling about the warmth of sunlight over our home? The first day of peace we’ve had in a decade?” Violet eyes met jade.

“To be honest, I came here to clear my head,” gloved hands ran over a small tied pouch that had sat strapped to his belt.

Mercedes eagerly listened, closing her shawl over shoulders and hands, sniffling against the cold air with a flushed face.

“I think… after this war is over, I want to be with him. He once mentioned wanting to be together forever, five years ago in the Goddess Tower, and at the time I thought it was somewhat insensitive of a joke to make, but now…”

Intent listening nearly pulls Mercedes toward the shuffling of his hands.

Hastily, he unwrapped a silver ring- its purple and orange lustre made clear in the winding sunrise over Fhirdiad’s mountains. 

Letting the light beam through the center of the metal, he inspected its warm glow.

Mercedes gasped, clasping her hands over her mouth to muffle the sound.

“Professor! That’s beautiful! You --” she can’t contain herself, “- you want to  _ marry _ him?”

Byleth nearly keeled over in embarrassment.

“My father… Jeralt told me to give this ring to someone important to me, and… when I think of him…”

Lips parted to respond, but purse quickly at the man’s distant expression.

“If I was mortal, maybe… maybe then…” he placed a hand above the left side of his chest, to no avail.

A demoralized sigh slipped from Mercedes lips - heartbroken from the realization that dawned upon her in that moment.

“This feeling that wells up within me when I think of him, it’s as if… I cannot imagine a life without him in it,” a shaking voice, and barely a whisper, “I know that our duties cannot allow us to be together.”

Silence overtook them.

“But the time you do have together is precious, and every moment of it should be cherished.”

Gently leaning forward, Mercedes took Byleth’s hand within her own.

“If you dream so longingly of spending the rest of your days by His Highness’ side, you should do what you want to. Regardless of what duties may demand.”

Byleth nodded, listening to her comfort.

“And no matter what the ages may bring, be it sorrow or joy, may your love stay as warm as your touch.”


End file.
